02 Pay & Go iPhone

[e3lysium]

My own personal view is that the PAYG version is going to be comparable to the previous price you could buy the iPhone in store. We have to remember that in Europe outside of the UK there is little to no demand by the massess for anything other than PAYG mobiles.. It's top-up-top-up-top-up .. no one wants to have a heavy contract.. its just not the way the rest of Europe seem to work for the everyday joe.. but obviously in the UK we have been brainwashed into accepting a complex contract with talk-time/texts that we never use and yet feel is a good deal.

Apple need to sell the phone and PAYG will prove to be a popular choice.. anything above the original £279 would be silly and give even more of an incentive to "unlock" and move to another operator given the chance just to spite O2.. and O2 must surely want people to be content with their brand and remain loyal.

 

[bazza42]

Wouldn't o2 just put the highest charges for texts and calls that is possible to try and get people to get the contract iPhone?

 

[sananda]

Wouldn't o2 just put the highest charges for texts and calls that is possible to try and get people to get the contract iPhone?

it could very well be. in which case, i will be unlocking if that will be possible.

 

[PowerFullMac]

If I get the unlimited data bolt-on will I still get my free texts?

 

[MacMuppet]

From what I can see on the O2 site, there IS a monthly minimum top-up.

Surely that's a monthly contract in all but name?!

 

[PowerFullMac]

Surely that's a monthly contract in all but name?!

No, the monthly top-up will be only if you want to take advantage of things like the unlimited data bolt-on or free texts, otherwise the phone will still work you just wont get your free data or whatever until you top-up.

They are not gonna go "top-up or we cut off your SIM", are they?

 

[MacMuppet]

No, the monthly top-up will be only if you want to take advantage of things like the unlimited data bolt-on or free texts, otherwise the phone will still work you just wont get your free data or whatever until you top-up.

They are not gonna go "top-up or we cut off your SIM", are they?

Fair enough.

I'm not an O2 customer so I'm not terribly familiar with their deals/pricing
structures. A visit to their "tariffs" page might be in the offing........

 

[zen]

No, the monthly top-up will be only if you want to take advantage of things like the unlimited data bolt-on or free texts, otherwise the phone will still work you just wont get your free data or whatever until you top-up.

They are not gonna go "top-up or we cut off your SIM", are they?

So if you go for the unlimited data bolt-on, you do have a minimum required monthly top-up on top of the £7.50 for the bolt-on? So effectively it becomes a contract of sorts?

What are O2's data charges for PAYG anyway? If I got a PAYG but didn't get the data bolt-on, what will I pay per MB?

 

[senorFunkyPants]

Apple need to sell the phone and PAYG will prove to be a popular choice.. anything above the original £279 would be silly and give even more of an incentive to "unlock" and move to another operator given the chance just to spite O2.. and O2 must surely want people to be content with their brand and remain loyal.

IMO it would be highly unlikely the PAYG 3G iphone will be £279 on initial release its simply too cheap, more like £379. The N95 on PAYG was £400+ in its early days.

 

[PowerFullMac]

So if you go for the unlimited data bolt-on, you do have a minimum required monthly top-up on top of the £7.50 for the bolt-on? So effectively it becomes a contract of sorts?

What are O2's data charges for PAYG anyway? If I got a PAYG but didn't get the data bolt-on, what will I pay per MB?

Data charges are stupidly expensive, hence the need for the bolt on, after a few minutes of browsing without it all of your credit is gone!

If you dont top up you just wont get the data until you do, so its more flexable then a contract.

 

[sananda]

IMO it would be highly unlikely the PAYG 3G iphone will be £279 on initial release its simply too cheap, more like £379. The N95 on PAYG was £400+ in its early days.

this new iphone must be cheaper for them to buy than the old one (so many more being made and flash memory being cheaper now), so why would the charge more than the old one?

 

[zen]

Data charges are stupidly expensive, hence the need for the bolt on, after a few minutes of browsing without it all of your credit is gone!

If you dont top up you just wont get the data until you do, so its more flexable then a contract.

Hmm, so then to take the bolt-on, you need the minimum £10 monthly top-up, so you've kinda made yourself a contract of sorts with a minimum monthly payment of £17.50.

 

[nwlondonlad]

I have a feeling that Apple will be stocking the Pay & GO Iphone 3G with o2 in their shops. It would be quite easy, just pay the fee for the handset and they will take them off the shelves and hand over to you, sim card included and a phone number to contact o2 if you have any problems.

It will be really weird for Apple not to actually sell the Iphone in any of the shops in the UK. Either that or they will have like a little booth with o2 representatives selling them at apple, kind of what the '3' network does with Superdrug.

 

[PowerFullMac]

Hmm, so then to take the bolt-on, you need the minimum £10 monthly top-up, so you've kinda made yourself a contract of sorts with a minimum monthly payment of £17.50.

It will take the £7.50 out of how much you top-up, but if you dont top-up one month but then do it a few weeks later it will start working again.

 

[nwlondonlad]

IMO it would be highly unlikely the PAYG 3G iphone will be £279 on initial release its simply too cheap, more like £379. The N95 on PAYG was £400+ in its early days.

Nice point made, but remember when the Iphone comes out on Pay & go it will still be subsidized a tiny bit because it will still be locked to the o2 network. When the N95 first came out it wasn't even being offered as Pay as you go. You only had the option to take on contract or Sim free which was about £500. Bear in mind that pay as you go phones locked to a network are slightly cheaper then buying them Sim free.

I'm guessing (more like wishing) £199 for the 8gig
£269 for the 16gig

 

[PowerFullMac]

but obviously in the UK we have been brainwashed into accepting a complex contract with talk-time/texts that we never use and yet feel is a good deal.

I agree, there is interesting stuff about that in "The Mobile Phone Rip-Off", that was a very interesting show.

 

[senorFunkyPants]

this new iphone must be cheaper for them to buy than the old one (so many more being made and flash memory being cheaper now), so why would the charge more than the old one?

The old one was sold at a subsidised price, part of the cost of the iphone was recovered through the contract.
The new one has more features than the old one.
There needs to be a significant price differential between the contract and PAYG iphone otherwise there will no incentive to buy one on contract.

 

[senorFunkyPants]

I'm guessing (more like wishing) £199 for the 8gig
£269 for the 16gig

I hope so...but the price of the PAYG iphone also has to fit in with the price of the iTouch, will Apple reduce the cost of the iTouch to match?
£199 for the 8gb would be a bargain..who would pay an extra £630 for the same iphone on contract @ £35/month?

 

[zen]

It will take the £7.50 out of how much you top-up, but if you dont top-up one month but then do it a few weeks later it will start working again.

Ah. Odd and over-complicated.

 

[sananda]

The old one was sold at a subsidised price, part of the cost of the iphone was recovered through the contract.
The new one has more features than the old one.
There needs to be a significant price differential between the contract and PAYG iphone otherwise there will no incentive to buy one on contract.

why do you think the previous iphone was sold at a subsidised price? at&t are saying that are NOW moving to subsidising iphone presumably meaning it wasn't subsidised before and prices were more or less in line between the us and the uk.

the new one has a gps chip and a 3g chip, but then again all the other components that are carried over will have become cheaper over the course of time and by reason of economies of scale. the dock has even been removed! and the back is probably cheaper.

naturally, there needs to be a differential but i don't think there's any reason to increase the cost of the 8gb as you think will be the case as there will be a big enough differential.

 

[MacMuppet]

Ah. Odd and over-complicated.

Smoke and mirrors

 

[nwlondonlad]

If you go to the o2 website and check their pay and go page, you find out that their most expensive phone is the Sony Ericsson K850i going for £239.99. One can only hope that the Iphone 3G will be within the same price range.

 

[PowerFullMac]

Ah. Odd and over-complicated.

Its not complicated, its actually quite simple.

When you top up on a certain date each month you get your data. If you decide not to top-up a certain month then you wont get your data until you top-up. That date will be the new one you have to top-up at every month to get the data.

 

[zen]

Its not complicated, its actually quite simple.

When you top up on a certain date each month you get your data. If you decide not to top-up a certain month then you wont get your data until you top-up. That date will be the new one you have to top-up at every month to get the data.

Ahh, ok, I think I have it. I just want to work it out because I will be using it for data rather than calls. Hey, I have no friends to call!

The £7.50 comes out of the amount I top up, as someone else said, right? So I get my new phone, I put £20 credit on it and get the data bolt-on, which gives me the £7.50 bolt-on and £12.50 call credit (just as an example).

In that month, I have a wild time with data (up the fair use limit of 260MB or whatever it is), but I make say four phone calls.

Next month rolls up and I find my data bolt-on has finished, but of course my call credit was hardly used, say I have £10 left on it.

So I need to put some more credit on to get my bolt-on back. So I could put on £7.50, from which is taken the bolt-on, leaving me with £0.00 for calls. But my £10 is still there from last month, and now I have my data bolt-on back.

Have I got that right?

 

[PowerFullMac]

Ahh, ok, I think I have it. I just want to work it out because I will be using it for data rather than calls. Hey, I have no friends to call!

The £7.50 comes out of the amount I top up, as someone else said, right? So I get my new phone, I put £20 credit on it and get the data bolt-on, which gives me the £7.50 bolt-on and £12.50 call credit (just as an example).

In that month, I have a wild time with data (up the fair use limit of 260MB or whatever it is), but I make say four phone calls.

Next month rolls up and I find my data bolt-on has finished, but of course my call credit was hardly used, say I have £10 left on it.

So I need to put some more credit on to get my bolt-on back. So I could put on £7.50, from which is taken the bolt-on, leaving me with £0.00 for calls. But my £10 is still there from last month, and now I have my data bolt-on back.

Have I got that right?

Yep you got it, and it was me who said that the £7.50 comes out of our credit, not someone else

I am probably gonna do the same as you as long as I still get my 300 free texts as well as the data.